Friends and family of Marcus Chapman help him pick what remains of his 4-acre farm in Windsor. Chapman farms will continue to sell corn, potatoes and maybe a few other items grown at his brother’s Fort Lupton farm, but everything else was wiped out in Saturday’s hail storm.

Dino DeVito, of Broadstream Roofing and Exteriors out of Denver, looks at the roof of Dan Buehler. It didn't take long for dozens of roofing contractors from across the state to converge on Greeley and Windsor after the storm Saturday.

Windsor cleans up, again

Nearly 24 hours after two powerful storms moved through western Weld County, residents of Windsor found themselves in an all too familiar place — cleaning up.

Ice piles, up to 4 feet high in some places, had still not melted in the hot August sun, giving credence to what some say is one of the worst non-tornado storms the town has seen in many years. Flooded basements, broken windows, damaged roofs and dented cars were commonplace in some of the same neighborhoods in Windsor where a powerful tornado tore through town in 2008.

The tornado “just came out of nowhere,” said Dan Buehler, who said he was glad to be in the safety of his home this time. “The good news is, this time we had three National Weather Service warnings before it hit. But I had 2-inch in diameter hail, 3-4 inches deep in my yard.”

He also had more than a dozen bags worth of leaves to pick up.

Just a few blocks to the southwest of Buehler, Marcus Chapman was picking what was left of the vegetables on his farm. Everything from eggplant to tomatoes to watermelon were torn up with hail dings. Friends and family members were out helping him salvage what was left of the vegetables he sells in his roadside stand.

And just across the street from the Chimney Park swimming pool, Susan Baca and her neighbors were out sweeping up their yards while fending off roofing contractors.

“They are right away at your door,” Baca said of the dozens of out-of-town contractors who arrived in Windsor on Sunday looking to replace a roof or two.

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When the siren went off on Jerry Ostermiller’s phone Saturday afternoon, he thought something had to be wrong.

He, his wife and his wife’s friend were sitting in Ostermiller’s garage looking out over the Grapevine Hollow subdivision in southwest Greeley, just south of U.S. 34 near 65th Avenue, and everything looked normal.

The sun was shining, and the air was calm.

“I had to show them my phone to make them believe me,” he said about the National Weather Service warning that alerted the three to a pending storm. “They thought I was joking. When we walked out into our backyard — holy cow, looking into the northern sky was a whole lot different than looking into the southern sky. I think that siren is the only thing that got my wife’s friend home safe in time.”

Ostermiller’s home was one of hundreds across western Weld County that was hit with near golf-ball sized hail, or bigger.

Neighborhoods across west Greeley and eastern Windsor were plagued with downed tree limbs, beaten up roofs, broken glass and destroyed gardens from the storms that rolled in around 3 p.m. and didn’t leave the area until after 7 p.m.

“It totaled my vegetable garden,” Ostermiller said. “There are holes all over our vinyl siding. This was one of the most severe storms I’ve seen.”

According to Greeley Fire Department spokesman John Fagerberg, there were no injuries reported from the storm, all city roads were open on Sunday and everything had settled down again after a busy night Saturday.

“It was kind of an all-hands-on-deck kind of thing to handle the large volume of calls (Saturday) and flooding,” he said.

Shane Scofield with the Weld County Sheriff’s Office said things were pretty quiet in the county, too, after a hectic Saturday. Despite all the reports of damage and flooding, no roads were closed, there were no injuries from the storm reported and no excessive traffic accidents.

Because the storm happened on the weekend, it will not be known if any roads will need repairs until the street department comes into work on Monday. Likewise, it may be several days before insurance estimates are available.

One industry that didn’t waste any time and was going door to door Sunday morning was the roofing contractors. At least a dozen — many from the Denver area — were seen knocking on people’s doors and putting signs in yards, just 12 hours removed from the storm.

“Most of the people I’ve spoken too say they replaced their roofs after the 2008 tornado,” said Dino DeVito, who was in Windsor representing Broadstream Roofing & Exteriors of Denver.

Stephen Simpkin, CEO and president of All Around Roofing, also of Denver, said tree leaves on the ground is a sure sign of roof trouble. Simpkin and his crew had just pulled into west Greeley about noon Sunday to start looking for work.

In one of the hardest hit neighborhoods, east of U.S. 34 near 47th Avenue, residents were still cleaning up Sunday.

Jason Burroughs took pictures of what were once beige siding on his house that now lay in pieces. And while he will likely also need a new roof, Burroughs says he feels lucky that only one of the windows on the north side of the house was broken.

Ken and Ann Price are also lucky it wasn’t worse. In fact, they were not home when the storm hit and were surprised when they returned. They did find something to smile about: a chunk of hail hit a knob on the side of the house and turned on their sprinklers.

Just down the road, south of 37th Street in the Arrowhead subdivision, Dorothy and Bill Elder also found reasons to be optimistic amid the large pile of cottonwood branches and leaves.

Rain poured over the retaining walls that were designed to keep the torrent of rainwater out of their home.

“It was like Niagara Falls,” Dorothy said. “It was really quite lovely. I feel really fortunate that our house was fine.”

“At least there will be less leaves in the fall to rake up,” Bill added.